Due in part to the lovely @goblinbox’s frequent mentions of bento boxes and their awesomeness, and especially because of a recent post which she put together on Bento strategery, I’ve taken the plunge!

Here’s what Wikipedia says about Bento:

Bento (弁当, bentō) is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables, usually in a box-shaped container. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware. Although bento are readily available in many places throughout Japan, including convenience stores, bento shops (弁当屋, bentō-ya), train stations, and department stores, it is still common for Japanese homemakers to spend time and energy for their spouse, child, or themselves producing a carefully prepared lunch box.

I get fresh vegetables and various other foods delivered to my home by Spud, but I rarely wind up using everything, because I don’t eat breakfast and I’m never home for lunch. My mornings are far too rushed (get up earlier? Are you effin’ keeding me?) to make lunches, and that means I wind up spending unnecessary dollars on a downtown Seattle lunch when I could be bringing something delicious from home instead. (And eating out on a regular basis completely ruins the whole notion of portion control.) But I’m an adult, and my hope is that the fun element of bento will help motivate me to assemble lunches the night before and just stick them in the fridge so I can just grab them in the morning. Healthier, cheaper, cuter, and yummier. That’s my goal.

I’m also not really an adult, and squee slightly at the lovely pictures of Kyaraben that float all over the internets, but I am not sure I can bring myself to make cute-ass bento only just for myself. That is why it is good to have a sister who lives with you!

I wanted a box that would be simple, cute (but not too cute), with 2 or more compartments, and at least one that could seal up and hold slightly-wet foods. And I sort of hoped it would fit in my messenger bag. So I went over to Bento&Co and got the blue and green Iro Iro Argyle Set.

These are lovely solid-color boxes with a 600ml total capacity. For $60, I got two boxes…

My cat does not know that this picture is not supposed to be of her.

Lovely Argyle carrying bags…

And chopsticks with their own carrying case!

I also got us each a set of My Cutlery, which come in their own small box…

And can be assembled to make a spoon, a fork…

Or chopsticks!

I don’t plan on making anything that will need a knife, nor is that really (as far as I can tell) the Bento Way.

I also got some cutie-pants bento things.

All these bright colors make me go eeeeeeee!

The flat round things are for thick sauces (hummus, dips); the little bottles are for thin sauces (soy sauce, vinegar dressing). These, of course, are totally practical. Slightly less defensible are the cute as crap panda bear picks.

But I bought them anyway.

Last week, I went on down to Uwajimaya, Seattle’s reigning Asian food palace (calling it a “market” seems diminutive), to get some authentic bento foods of various sorts. While I’m not against the idea of sticking in westernized substances such as cheese and crudités and so on, I nonetheless love any opportunity to play around with food, and Japanese food is a sort I’m less acquainted with than many another. (I say “less” because I’m pretty good with sushi, but there’s a lot of Japanese food that’s not sushi. And to anyone out there who tries to argue the “You wanted something cheaper, but you have to go out and buy extra food” line on me: dude, have you ever been to an Asian food market? It’s like the cheapest food there is…)

Here’s the haul:
In the back row, from left to right: furikake (a seasoning made of seaweed, sesame seeds, and yum), pickled ginger, seasoned rice vinegar, black sesame seeds, and kim chee.
On the left: umeboshi (pickled plums), green tea, fruit snacks. (I didn’t get the fruit snacks at the Asian food market, but eventually they’re going to wind up in the bentos…)
Center: sushi nori (for playing with, basically), bonito flakes (fish seasoning that flavors all sorts of Japanese food).
Right: pickled radish. (This looks weird as hell, I know, but it makes a great palate-cleanser. I spent a week once at a Zen Buddhist monastery, and we ate pickled daikon with every meal. Om nom nom!)

A few notes on these. This is one of the most delicious things you can ever put in your mouth:

and since apparently onigiri with umeboshi inside is a traditional type of onigiri, well, that’ll be happening.

Fear not: this will never be going in the bento boxes. It is strictly for at-home consumption, because I do not hate my coworkers, and I’m pretty sure that kim chee is considered only slightly more acceptable in civilized places than durians are.

More things that will be going in the boxes:

Snacky crackers! And…

Sweets! I think most folks around here are familiar with Pocky (chocolate or strawberry-flavoring-dipped little stick-cookies); the other items here are, from the top: ginger candy, plum candy, toasted sesame-filled mochi, and bean paste-filled wheat cakes.

So, I’m excited; I’ve been busy enough with the upkeep of other parts of my life lately (friends, career, blahdeeblah) that I haven’t had as much time and energy as I once did to have foodventures. But this is a good start, and I’m already a little bit in love with it all. For tonight, though…

The most beautiful bottle of absinthe I’ve ever seen, I think.

Here are a few iPhone apps I’ve got on my phone, and am loving:

Big Oven - There are dozens, really, of recipe-compilation iPhone apps, but so far, this is my favorite. It speedily accesses its online database of 170,000+ recipes and classifies by dietary restrictions, ratings, type of cuisine, and more! It will even pick a random recipe from its trove if you ask it to, so if you find yourself stuck at the grocery store with no brilliant ideas of what to cook, you’ll find a shopping list appearing in your hands. Photos of their recipes are rather inspirational, too…

Cocktail Compass: Seattle - This is all about finding hours and specs on Seattle’s Happy Hour. It uses location services to show you what’s closest, and then goes on to tell you how much time you have to get there before Happy Hour ends. Tap on an interesting-looking entry, and you’ll get details on what that location’s Happy Hour involves, as well as a map to them, a call button, and an option to add them to your favorites list. No longer must you wander downtown like a lost, thirsty puppy!

Yelp - It’s just as good as the full website is, with hundreds of restaurant reviews, hours, phone numbers, and details. Even better, it integrates with maps and location services to tell you what’s nearby, and how to get there. You can search by ethnicity, price range, and more, and build up a list of favorites to come back to.

Open Table - So you’ve found a restaurant that looks great, is nearby, and in your price range. Of course, it’s only two in the afternoon, and you need a table for six, but no one’s answering the phone at the restaurants. Open Table will allow you to make reservations online instantly, for free. The one caveat I’d have for this is that the selection of restaurants available via Open Table, while large, is not Every Restaurant in Seattle. Yet.

In the spirit of all things food (which have sparked my interest more and more of late), I wanted to share with you a web-site that a friend of mine found recently: Foodzie. Essentially, it’s Etsy for food. It’s an on-line market-place for small (and generally, indie) vendors and artisans to sell their edibles. Sauces, spreads, jams, oils, vinegar, nuts, cheeses, chocolate, candy — it’s a treasure trove of off-the-beaten-path foodstuffs! I have yet to order anything from them, but here are a few of the things I’ve found which are going on my to-eat list:

Cinnamon Basil Tea Cookies from the Botanical Bakery.

Lavender Hanahbells Thimble Cheese from the Shy Brothers Farm. I’m such a sucker for Lavender!

Grenache Wine Vinegar from Allure Estates.

Scenic City Sizzle, Grilling Pepper from Alchemy Spice Company. I’m imagining this getting slathered all over a grilled halibut. Whoa.

Mint Chip Macaroons from Emmy’s Organics. The “chips” are not semi-sweet or even bitter-sweet chocolate chips, but raw cocoa nibs sprinkled throughout. I love chocolate in its regularly consumable forms, but there’s something so totally pure and perfect about nibs, they’re so dark and bitter but with their own natural sweetness and oiliness that fills your mouth with the smallest amount.